Off Menu with Ed Gamble and James Acaster - Ep 55: Natasha Leggero and Moshe Kasher

Episode Date: April 15, 2020

So many firsts in this week’s LA-recorded episode with comedians Natasha Leggero and Moshe Kasher: our first married couple in the dream restaurant, the first competitive menus, and James’s first sip of coffee in god knows how long.Recorded and edited by Ben Williams for Plosive Productions.Artwork by Paul Gilbey (photography and design) and Amy Browne (illustrations).For latest news from Natasha and Moshe visit natashaleggero.com and moshekasher.comFollow Natasha and Moshe on Twitter: @natashaleggero and @moshekasherMoshe Kasher’s new live album ‘Crowd Surfing Vol 1’ is available now on SpotifyFollow Off Menu on Twitter and Instagram: @offmenuofficial.And go to our website www.offmenupodcast.co.uk for a list of restaurants recommended on the show.Watch Ed and James's YouTube series 'Just Puddings'. Watch here. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hello, listeners of the Off Menu podcast. It is Ed Gamble here from the Off Menu podcast. I have a very exciting announcement. I have written my first ever book. I am absolutely over the moon to announce this. I'm very, very proud of it. Of course, what else could I write a book about? But food. My book is all about food. My life in food. How greedy I am. What a greedy little boy I was. What a greedy adult I am. I think it's very funny. I'm very proud of it. The book is called Glutton, the multi-course life of a very greedy boy. And it's coming out this October, but it is available to pre-order now, wherever you pre-order books from. And if you like my signature, I've done some signed copies,

which are exclusively available from Waterstones. But go and pre-order your copy of Glutton, the multi-course life of a very greedy boy now. Please? Welcome to the Off Menu podcast, the podcast so explosive that you have to prick it with a fork before you put it in the oven. Hello, James A. Caster. Oh, boy. Are you a sleepy little boy? I am a sleepy little boy, but I actually thought my sausage-based intro was quite strong. Yes, well done, Ed Gamble. It was a good intro, but you delivered it in a way where you were like, oh, whatever. Oh, I'm sorry. And that's a bad way to deliver it, because it's actually

a really great episode today. Oh, it's such a great episode, Bebbe. Of our food podcast, where we ask our special guests, James, the favourite ever starter main course dessert, side dish and drink, and our guests. Guests. This week are Mocha Kasia and Natasha Leggero. They are two brilliant comedians. They are also a married couple. They are our first couple on the podcast in the Dream Restaurant, James. I'm so excited. We never had two guests on at the same time before, especially two guests who know each other's eating habits so well. They can't lie. They can't get out and things. They can't try and make themselves sound cool, because the other one will be

able to call them out on it. I'm excited. I hope they've come to the Dream Restaurant for a lovely, fun, romantic dinner, and not an awkward arguing dinner. Yes, yes. Good point, good point, Ed. However, we will, and this could be the first episode where we chuck someone out and still have someone left in the restaurant. That's what's quite exciting. It's very exciting. If they say a secret ingredient, or one of them says a secret ingredient, that we have predetermined they will be asked to leave the restaurant. The secret ingredient this week is tapioca pearls. I'm fed up with you for getting what it is and then wait for me to start saying it and then joining in, James. It's not fair.

You're piggybacking on my memory. I look up to you and I follow your lead. Tapioca pearls. If they say tapioca pearls. I like them. I just want to get that in. Weird, chewy little balls. There's no point to them. Personally, I like them. I think they're pretty tasty, but majority rules. Well, it's not a majority. I'm only 50%. I don't know the great Benito's got the deciding vote. What do you reckon? He doesn't care. It is tapioca pearls are the secret ingredient. Let's hope they don't say that, but let's hear the off-menu menus of Moshe Kasia and Natasha Legerro. I'm going to put an extra chair out. Welcome, Moshe and Natasha to the Dream Restaurant. Hi. Welcome, Natasha and Moshe to the Dream

Restaurant. We've been expecting you for some time. It's about time we had a couple in here, Ed. Yes, you are our first couple in the Dream Restaurant. It's normally, for a restaurant, a very lonely place. Listen, I don't want to start the ranking early, but they got to say intro number two was a little bit, that was a little more. Okay. Well, just to let you know, he's a genius. He's a genius. So, you know, of course, it'd be disappointing if it wasn't explosive intro. Right. That's why I go first because I'm just a human. Okay, got it. Yeah. All right. Well, ours also, we're not eating as a couple in our Dream Restaurant. No, that's true. We're eating as single people. Okay. Separate tables? No, we'll sit together.

Yeah. Wait, but how do people eat as a couple? Nobody eats as a couple. You all, everybody always orders separate dishes. Yeah, that's true. But we're at different restaurants. I thought you were about to say we're different races, which I found. In our Dream Restaurant, we're different races. Sure, that's a nice thing. It's a Dream Restaurant. Let's mix it up a bit. So yeah, my starter is going to be, I'm going to be a Maori warrior. Feel free to change throughout. Did you notice my me flipping through, which race would feel the least awkward? And Maori warrior, I felt empowering. It felt good. Yeah. You're like, no one in this room really knows enough about that. So I can say that and get away with it. We can't really sort of delve

into stereotypes, but we don't have the knowledge to do so. Okay. So this podcast is not about race and race? No, no, no, no. Not usually. I do a lot of podcasts, but they're all on one subject. Yeah. So you two, for this podcast, do you want to be divorced? No, that sounds delightful. We just have a divorce now. How about we never met? Oh, we're not. That's even harsher. That now starts to feel like a whole role playing thing that I don't necessarily want to get into. Okay, we've never met, but she is sort of, I would guess, like I would say an underage schoolgirl. Well, divorce might take away some of the happiness that I might derive from some of the places. From having never met me?

Yeah. That's what I'm saying. It'd be better if we had never met. Yeah. You don't want to be like sitting there thinking, oh, my marriage is over. It's much nicer being sitting there going, maybe I'll meet a guy. Yeah. I guess I'll have another piece of pot pie. My marriage is over. So you would say, when you said it'd be better if we never met, you met for the game? Yeah. Okay. You didn't mean? In general? Yeah. No.

Okay. Because we are in reality, not in the dream rest of the day, but we're, we'd be fucking. What? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Still, still, seven years in, but not in the dream restaurant. No, no, no, no, no, no. Not here. You will be going to the bathroom one at a time. We're not having any of that in the dream restaurant. Thank you. Yeah. I'll be keeping my eyes on you actually. You guys usually keep eyes on people that go to the restaurant.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. This is our restaurant. Well, I don't know how we like. Oh, it's your dream restaurant as well. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's a dream restaurant here. It's actually not a dream bathroom. That's, it's just a normal bathroom.

And there's a guy who has to look after that tomorrow. Makes plenty of sense. Yeah. Yeah. We've got a toilet attendant. I hope that's fine. We've got a toilet attendant who is a pixie. I was going to go zombie, but happy with pixie. Zombie. Yeah. That's good. Yeah. Yeah. Not to, not to break the, the game here, but am I allowed to do a meta commentary on this?

Absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah. So we were listening just so, just this memory popped into my mind as we were coming over here because we were listening to Kumail's episode and he was talking about spicy food and stuff. And I, I, a great memory popped into my brain. We went and we brought Kumail to a Szechuan restaurant. But by the way, LA has some of the greatest Chinese food you will ever. True spice. Like, yeah. It's a Szechuan spice and it's like, numbing.

There's nothing like the Chinese food I've ever had in my life. Yeah. They say that the San Gabriel Valley area of Los Angeles, which is about 40 minutes outside of anywhere you'd ever visit other than to go get Chinese food, is the densest concentration of different kinds of Chinese food that you can get anywhere in the world. And maybe even including China, because in China, all the Chinese regions. The Sprite and Provindia, yeah. Yeah. They live where they live.

And it's not that far. It's like 25 minutes. Yeah. And here they all move to town. And it's a really surreal place because it's where, it's where American graffiti was filmed. So the, the, the artifice of the place looks like a classic Americana town place, but it's like 85% Chinese immigrants. So it looks like this like classic 50s America, but it's like little China. Anyway, we brought Kumail there and he'd never had Sichuan food before.

And by like 10 minutes in, he, you were asking about sweating, sweating, coughing, like asking the waitress for more water and left, went to the bathroom without his wife. Yeah. And it was the funniest. I just kept saying, you're from Pakistan. You grew up in Pakistan. Like we've outspiced this. He didn't like the numbing. They didn't like the numbing. But it's a different kind of spice, isn't it?

It is a different kind of spice. I was very lucky to be in the room with James when he had Sichuan spice for the first time. And it is a joy to watch someone experience it for the first time. I panicked. It's not, yes. I didn't know it. Do you start sweating from your temples? It wasn't that. It was that I didn't know it was meant to numb, numb your mouth.

It doesn't feel like food. So when I had that sensation, I thought, oh man, they, they've like not, not taken the washing up liquid out of this bowl or something. Like I, I, I, I'm eating chemicals. I'm not meant to eat. But in a nice way. Oh, well, as soon as she told me that's meant to happen, I was like, great. Well, I'm going to eat all of it. And I loved it.

To your credit, I don't know if it's still like this, but for a time in American markets, the Sichuan spice in particular would be on and off the black market. So one week you'd go in and be like, it's legal and you could buy a regular. And then the next week you go back and the spice man will be like, this week you have to go see a man in an alley. So they would toggle back and forth. So it wasn't, anyway. You're our first couple as well.

Yeah, we're excited about that. We've had two guests at once before. When you first met, did you bond over food? Was that a, a thing? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I think Moshe is more of a foodie than I am. He's from San Francisco.

And when he was little, his like, his mom, they didn't have a lot of money, but his mom would always take him to a fancy restaurant when he was like a kid in San Francisco. For my, for my birthday, my birthday present was that we would, I would, she would say, what do you want? And I would always say, I want to go to a really fancy restaurant. And we were very poor too. We were, we were on food stamps. What's the, what would you, what's the equivalent of such a thing?

The dole. The dole. Yeah. Well, there's, I mean, like food banks or something like that. Yeah. So we were like, poor, poor on welfare, on state assistance. And once a year, we would go to a, to like a really fancy restaurant. I have very fond memories of these, of slumming it in these fancy restaurants.

But, but I never really had nice food. So I feel like I'm very into atmosphere. Like I'll totally take a downgrade on food for like a restaurant that's been open for 100 years. Oh, that's nice. I just like to sit in those places. Like if I'm on the road, I always like Google, like, what's the oldest restaurant? Like if I have an extra night or something where I have nothing, you know, I'm going to go out to dinner or something.

But by old restaurant, we're American. So it means like 30 plus years. Real old school charm. Yeah. It's kind of, say he's been here for some time. Here's a fun fact about. But Moshe has a snob about food and you also know how to eat everything. I'm not a snob because I like food on all, all spectral levels of the,

of the, of the food chain, of the economic food chain. I think the, like the Chinese, the Chinese food that I'll get in the San Diego Valley is as good as any five star restaurant I've ever been to in my life. That's one of the best meals one can ever have. But you also don't eat cheese, really? I do eat cheese. No, I eat cheese. You don't want to get into my dietary issue.

You only eat certain fish. That's true. I got also weird kosher stuff going on. You'll eat chicken, but not beef. Well, this is why I think I'm actually. No, please. What else you got? Well, I'm just saying and you eat pretty healthy.

Well, this is why I think I'm actually the best gauge of a great restaurant of anybody because I'm so annoying that if you can bring me a meal that adheres to my dietary restrictions and it's still a five out of five, then you're really a good restaurant because I'm not even getting the true experience of how the restaurant's supposed to be experienced. Sure. So, I mean, when you two go out to eat together, it must be quite difficult that you've got to find a really old place that doesn't food that you like. It's hard.

We only go to Jewish delis ever. So, we always start with Still or Sparkling Water on the podcast. Is it, are you, I mean, I don't know. This is unprecedented, Ed. Right. You're worried one of us is going to stay still and the other will say sparkle. Yeah, I think we can sort it out like Jack Spratt and his wife over here. Maybe we should do it like we're ordering because like, honestly, I always order

sparklings. I know he likes that more. Oh, do you want still? I prefer still. Oh, really? This is a straight up exclusive. Here we go. Well, in general, it just seems slightly more healthy.

Oh, yeah. What do you think? I drink a lot of sparkling water and she's convinced that it has some sort of negative medicinal property. No, I just think it's probably better to drink more regular water. Probably. Is it though? It's got to be.

More and more now, I think people are saying sparkling is bad, is bad for you. Bad for your teeth. Bad for your teeth. Bad for your insides. Makes you burp. So, it's only your teeth and your insides though. It's just the teeth of the insides. Your skin though.

Oh, yeah. But have it once in a while. But anyway, when we're out to dinner, I would say sparkling because it's nice and we get some limes on the side. But you're ordering that for Moshe. And for me, I enjoy it as well. All right. Okay.

You know what's interesting though is she said, let's order, let's talk about it like we're ordering at a real restaurant. When we go to a restaurant together, literally every time, that entire speech is what she does for me. It's uncomfortable for me. But yes, we'll take sparkling, please. Sparkling water. With some limes if you have them.

Oh, I can get some limes. Yeah. Would it be an awful start to a dream meal if you were like, we are out of limes. There are no limes. No limes, sorry. And also no food. Goodbye. Can we fucking the bathroom?

Yeah, okay. You can't speak to the bathroom zombie about that. Yeah. Do you want the limes cut up in like a certain way? Do you want them halved, quartered? A union jack would be nice. Just thematically, UK listeners. I feel like requesting any limes in any sort of way is a little over the top.

You know what? Actually, I do have a lime preference. I don't like when a lime is a full slice of the lime. I agree. Because what are you supposed to do? You have to get your hands all mushy. There's no purchase. I don't want it to look like a garnish.

I want the flavor of that lime. So give me a wedge. You want to squeeze it with a wedge? Give me that wedge. That's a lot of fun squeezing a wedge. It is so fun. Yeah. You should ask them at the end about our restaurant dilemma.

Oh, what? Okay. What is it? Okay. Wow. This is kind of the end. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You guys are going to have to think about this all the time.

Okay. Or maybe I can just ask you really quickly. Yeah, sure. Okay, go ahead. It isn't about to be quick. What's more fun though is usually what we do is we set up a kind of psychological game where the podcast hosts have to like deal with thinking about it the whole time. Just to try to get them off their rhythm.

What is our dilemma? No, because I was just out to eat with Todd Berry in New York and he said he agrees with me, but everyone on our podcast agrees with you. No one will agree with you. If the kitchen closes at 10 p.m., will you go there at... But the restaurant stays open. The kitchen closes at 10 at 9.50. Would you go in and have a meal?

Yes. Thank you. Yeah, I think I would. I think if they want to shut the kitchen early, they should put the time earlier. Yeah. He starts to freak out. Like everyone's going to get upset and there'll be nothing open. And he's like, I'm not going in there.

They close in 15 minutes and I'm like, but they stay open for us to eat. Unreal. The unreal. Aren't you guys the creators of etiquette? If you're trying to go in an order within the time they've said you can order. Yeah. Don't you attack me? I'm not married to you.

I knew you guys would agree with me. I do think it's rude. Everybody's like, literally they're untying their little apron. They're like, yeah, it's about that time. But I used to be a waiter and you get an extra $30 or $20. Not in England. They don't even tip really. Do you tip?

No, no, no. So you don't even have that. You don't even have that just in case you say, yeah, yeah. I'll go in there at 9.59. No, would you really? I'll beg at 10.10. Well, I think if they say it's 10 o'clock, that's when it shuts. That's when the restaurant shuts.

But no, the kitchen shuts. In theory, this restaurant's staying open longer. People are sometimes at a bar. People are finishing their meals that just came to them at 9.55 or 10. Here's the dilemma I have. First of all, I don't ever want to put people into an awkward position. I don't want to impose on people. But also, I don't want to be in a restaurant

where everyone hates me while I'm eating. And the whole time, I'm thinking, oh, these people are miserable and they just want me to leave. And the worry is if you go in on order at 9.59, they're doing something to that food. I never think about that, but I guess that is a good worry. But you just think they're all going like, who the hell's come in? I used to work in a kitchen and if we were about to close,

sometimes, it'd be a really slow day. And then in the last hour, we're like, let's tidy down now. Let's clean everything. And you're ready to go. And then right at that last 10 minutes, someone comes in order or something. And we're like, who the fuck would do it? We're really angry about it.

However. And now you're a successful comedian. You're just like, fuck these people. Fuck my roots. I'm going to just do what I want. He goes back to the place he used to work. And they're still working. They're all those people.

We'll go into the kitchen, make a little deep eye contact with an old co-worker. It's me, motherfucker. Here's who the fuck's just ordered. Yeah. I would like the combo for two. You're just one. That was the most common order.

What's the combo for two? It was like deep fried mushrooms, bread crumbed, deep fried. It was deep fried everything, potato wedges that had like loads of horrible cheese and stuff in them. It's like, yeah, just a lot of deep fried platter. So a bit of a high-end restaurant. Fries. A bit of a curia kind of situation.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. It was all microwaved and fried, and then like a soft play area for the kids. That was like the... Which was all fried as well. Yeah, yeah. That was all fried and crispy. I guess.

The kids knocking about. Okay, well, it seems like... In the end of this, we'd like sparkling water. Sparkling water wedges of life. I just thought you guys would have a good take on it. No, it's not a good take because they agree with you. That doesn't make a good take. Interesting.

So it's like us and Todd Barry? Yeah, well, most of people have like been berating me online saying that, how can you think that? But I just wanted to make it clear that... How did you know? How did your instincts tell you so deeply and correctly? Because these are reasonable people. You don't know them.

We just got here. I could tell. Yeah, but we give off that vibe. We're like us and Todd Barry. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Just very reasonable people. Yeah, that's a reasonable... Well, he's very into restaurants too.

You know, like people who are very into like going out to eat. I like going out to eat. I want to go out to eat all the time. I would say 80% of the meals I've eaten in my adult life have been in restaurants. 90%? Yeah. Really? 95%?

That's pretty high. You wouldn't cook at home? I would. I just generally didn't. I was single. Before Natasha and I got together, I was perpetually single, only single. So it's like there's nothing... And you're living in Oakland with your hanging out friends.

Nothing more depressing than cooking a meal for yourself and then having like a lot of leftovers and just like... You're actually a really good cook. I am a good cook. Mosha can like improvise like a salad dressing or like vegan cookies or like the best like pasta. Like he's like very good at like... I can fry a mushroom like he couldn't believe.

Seasonings. Oh yeah, a combo for two. You'd be a good saucier. I'll have a combo for two from Mosha. Pop it on some bread! Pop it on some bread! I'll take... I'm going to go bread.

Pop it on some bread. Oh bread. Bread, bread for sure. Both going bread. Bread's better. It's the same bread. I like pop it on if I'm eating like an Indian meal, but I don't know if I want it just all the time.

I mean bread is just better. Bread is best. The question is what kind of bread? Yeah, what sort of bread is the question? Can you agree on that? As long as the butter has like flakes of salt on it. You're into that? Yes.

I skip butter generally. I skip the butter and they say to skip the bread, but I'll take... If I'm going to say the best bread is... Not equivocally, it's got to be French. French, for the French do bread better than everybody else, right? Okay, yeah. Right?

The French is now bread, yeah. We're still married at this point. You're back on the same page now. Well, when we start talking about Frenching, I mean, it brings back a lot of good memories. Yeah, suddenly. Yeah. French bread, please.

Lots of crust and make it warm. We could probably sell out an old crust baguette for you. Oh, not one. Just crust. Now, that is an experiment worth trying. What it would take is 50 plus baguettes with a long spoon where you just comb out the soft, spongy dough, the part that everybody likes.

Yeah, the bread. You throw that to the masses, a beggar on the street, and then just stuff in. You need smaller baguettes all the way down. It's a Russian bread, it's got to be. In general, that's a pretty bad way to start your meal. Like you would never start your meal at home with like four pieces of white bread.

No, no, it's all that. It's really not good. We should just always skip it. You know what? We're skipping the bread today. Oh, we'll skip the bread. Yeah. Honey, yeah, we'll skip the bread.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. That'd be a good point. No one at home is like... Yeah, I'll just eat a loaf. To have a basket of bread and butter. Before your pasta. I will say that I like when I'm at a fancy restaurant and they come by with one of those stone slates

with like nine kinds of bread. But the problem that they put you into a pig dilemma, which is they're like, okay, now would you like the cardamom bread with a rock-ferred crust, or would you like the rye with a sweet and salty chutney? And you're like, I obviously want all of it. Give me one of all.

You do though. You're like, can I have one of each of them? Yeah, you can't say give me all. So you go, I'll have one of those, and those, and those, and those, and why? Is that all of them? Just leave the slates. It'd be a lot more considerate if I just described one of them awfully.

Or the dog shit plank. Did you want that? Yeah, yeah. Oh, I guess I'll skip that. This bread. Starters? Oh, a starter. What do you got?

I like that wedge salad with bacon and blue cheese dressing. A wedge, a classic wedge. Yeah. But then that's before we had, I turn Jewish and don't eat bacon anymore. Yeah, she turned Jewish. Oh, yeah? And then I found her. Moshe just, that's the only forbidden food in our house is pork.

Yeah, we don't do pork. He turns Jewish the right way? That is, that is scientific. How did that happen? I can heard it. So the full moon comes along. When every seventh full moon is a blood moon. And if you, if you, there's a specific incantation,

but if you say the incantation at the blood moon, you turn Jewish. Yeah. Oh, but didn't your grandma used to be the main salad maker? Oh yeah. My dad also told me that my, my grandma was like the salad maker at this old Italian restaurant. Nona, she was called. Nona.

Nona? Yeah. And so she would, what was it? She, she was blind or her, her, her, her sight was bad. No, she had no sense of taste. Isn't that what she said? Oh, she had no sense of taste. This is the best thing about having a couple is you can remind each other

of your own anecdotes. My grandmother had none of her senses. I had never, never lived. Well, my dad just visited and told us this story. And it was very confusing when he was telling it to me, but he said that she would smell the salad to know when it had enough, like of everything in it. Oh, wow.

Wow. No, thank you to that salad, please. And then she was a master. She was like the master. So she didn't have a sense of taste, but she had a sense of smell. Listen, did you feel when we said the no sense of taste that we were 100% sure that that's how the story went? No. So it's impossible she didn't have a robust sense of taste.

That was I sense that she didn't have. That's right. I do think the salad is like the way to go for a starter. And the point is her grandma was an old Italian salad master. Yes. And so it's in my blood. For my starter, I, I'm going to go, I'm going to go a little differently than my wife.

I wanted to start with, well, I had two things I couldn't quite decide between. One was I thought that I would have hummus from, there's one particular place in Akko in Israel. It's a, it's a medieval crusade town. The only reason that it exists is because the crusaders came there and like established a little fort there or whatever. And it was the, it's the best hummus I've ever had in my life. And I just, you know, in Israel and in the Middle East, they'll do hummus as a meal.

Which I think is the way that it should be done, but for today. Have you ever seen people do that though? It's like a bowl instead of like porridge. It's hummus and they eat it with a spoon. It's a full meal. Our friend's a niche kuma, the comedian. He is the only person I know who eats hummus like a yogurt. Like he'll just stand at the fridge eating hummus with a spoon.

No, but hummus as a meal is a whole thing. It's that kind of restaurant. You sit down and they're like, you want hummus and then they'll say, what do you want on it? And you get, oh, I'll have chicken or I'll have fool or whatever. You know, the big father bean kind of whatever. This is your starter? Well, I want this hummus from this place.

I see. I thought, do you want anything on it? Absolutely. Chicken. That's a good question. Do I want anything on it? I'll get, yeah, I'll get a sliced egg and hot sauce.

And I'll get some pickles on that. What about some olives? Slice them on there. Yeah, let's do that. Sure, why not? Yeah, hell yeah. Oh, you want a bowl of everything? Yeah, I want a bowl of everything.

I want a combo number two. Take all that deep fry up, put it in the microwave, bring it on back. On its way. I had some fantastic hummus in LA the other night. A restaurant that I cannot pronounce the name of. Was it called Mazah? Yes. Yeah.

Good hummus. Really good. Really, yes, really truly good. It's one of those places, the Middle East, and I'm going to get into this more later with my main dish, but it's like bizarre when you go and you order hummus in Israel or in another country in the Middle East, and then you come to the West and it's an Arab or an Israeli

making you the food and it's not even close. You're like, what is the thing that is, you clearly know how to make the thing. What is different here than there? Yeah. What's available, ingredients? Is that what it is? Freshness, good local produce.

So on another level. The falafel I've had in Israel is so on another level. It says if the falafel everywhere else is a different kind of food. Right, yeah. And that goes double for the hummus. The hummus at this place was, I really enjoyed it, and it was so good that it made me get over the fact I was sitting on a rickety table on a pavement outside,

having waited 40 minutes and everything was written on a paper bag. I think I'm like five years past thinking that's cool. It's like sleeping on a friend's couch. Yeah, exactly. That's why I've never been there. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm not, Dila, I'm just like, I'm over this. It was worth it?

It was really good. That place is delicious, but speaking of like getting past it, we have friends who are also a couple and they'll remain nameless, but they do a thing called, they'll call on postmates or whatever to Mazah and do what do they call it? Order. Fire the menu.

Fire the menu. We saw that. They just order the whole menu. Maybe that place is the place that does it. Maybe so. I never heard of such a thing. Absolutely. Yes, it says it on the menu.

It says it on the menu. Fire the menu. It says fire the menu. Which I for like... Yeah, yeah, yeah. We'll take it all. Get rid of it. But I didn't know what the thing was like.

What else do you got? Oh, yeah, yeah. Start again. We arrived one minute before the kitchen closed and I said fire the menu. Fire the menu. Fire the manager. I'm going home. So would you like your wedge salad made by your nana?

Not really. She put sausage in it. Okay. Not so much the master anyway. I thought she was like... You know, like that cold Italian sausage? Absolutely not her. She was awful.

Fire the nana. I've also realized, because we've got two of you on, it's the first time we could technically do competitive off menu. Sure. We could decide with each round what the better one is. I love this. Okay. Yeah.

So, I mean, I don't know if you guys are okay with that. Is that a way? Of course. Our marriage is nothing if not a long-term competition. So just so you know, my salad, you're eating it at Paradise Cove, which is on Malibu outside and there's like a sea breeze. Okay. If we're doing it like that, just so you know,

my hummus is from, as I said, a medieval town in the Middle East that was, it looks like a castle from Indiana Jones, the lost crusade or whatever. And it's literally ancient medieval ruins, which doesn't mean as much to YouTube, but for us, this is significant with the waves of the Mediterranean lapping at slowly crumbling ruins. That's a good ocean. Yeah.

That's a good one. Okay. There's a few more paragraphs there. Yeah. I don't know what you said, Natasha. I mean, that's fine. But when you were talking about the old castle, I saw Natasha was like, I want to go to that place.

Yeah. Malibu, you know, you don't really need to sell it. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. That's where Malibu, it stands alone. Yeah.

Well, what do you guys? I think I would have been more intrigued if it was made by your blind deaf and dumb, not like that would have like, kind of like lured me in a bit more. Yeah. A bit of a personal touch. Would have enjoyed that. Yeah. I'm a hummus guy though.

Yeah. Yeah. All right. I feel like, look, it's only the- Have fun in Israel. I'm in Malibu with my white wine. You're an Israel guy? Whoa, this just got so political.

Okay, but okay. Oh, dear. Main courses. Main courses. Well, I think this was where I might split the room. I want a burrito. And I only did that because you guys are from England and I wanted to make a rhetorical point, which is that you, that no one in England has ever had a burrito.

Okay. Like in the same way that no one in America has ever really had good Indian or Pakistani food, unless we go to England or I would assume Pakistan and India, but I've not been to those places. But the differential, I don't know why this is the theme of everything I'm ordering, but the differential between a burrito. And by the way, I live in LA. There's barely any burritos here. LA is like a taco town.

It's truly, it's like San Francisco. That's, now that's the home of the burrito. I want a San Francisco Mission Street burrito. There's one good burrito I've had in LA. And LA burritos are like sloppy. I bet you British people eat them with a knife and fork. No, we actually, we actually don't. He makes fun of how I eat them because I like tear it in half.

Oh, she'll try to eat it like a slice of pizza, like flatten it out. And then just like mash, macerated it. He's such a snob about how to eat a burrito. He's like, you got to like suck it. I'm not. I'm not just, he's always like, you got to like bite and suck it. You kind of tease it for a while and then you go to the base for a bit. Like your tongue on the bottom and then you go back up.

And then, no. Yeah, actually, honestly, I know you guys are incredulous or whatever, but yeah, part of a true burrito technician eating experience is you have to do a bit of suction while you're eating. Why are you sucking this? Okay, so like. Because it's too full. Yeah.

It's full, right? So like, let's say the head, let's say the corona of the burrito. So the bite technique, first of all, the wrapping technique is that you start at the top, you unwrap a little bit, like a, you know, like a spiral candy or whatever. The foil. A little foil, but a little bit folded down so you won't get any foil in your mouth. So then you just have a chunk of edible area.

Just peeking over the top. Just peeking, but not, you don't want it to be too up high because then you're going to bite into foil and nobody wants that. So you, and then once it's ready and you're secure, your base is secure, you take a first bite, no suck, no need. You got a solid. First bite, no suck, no need. No suck, no need.

First bite, no suck, no need. That's what everyone in San Francisco says. Second bite. Now you got a lot of stuff going on, right? You got your rice, you got your beans, you got your meat, you got your cheese, you got your sour cream, salsa. Like what you're going to do if you just bite in, like some kind of fucking dumb animal,

is it's going to fall all over your neck and chest. It's going to be like all sour cream or something. Yeah, you're going to get blasted. You're going to get blasted on the chest. It's going to erupt on you this thing. It's just going to. If you take your second bite, it will erupt on you. It's going to be all over your neck and chest.

It's going to bust. The truth is at the second bite, I'm overdoing it. At the second bite, you're still pretty good, because you got a lot of tortilla on the top that's still holding stuff in. By the time you're getting down into the middle of the burrito, it's a fucking war zone, right? What you got to do is you put your mouth,

you don't just bite, you put your mouth in the area you want to eat from. You get ready, you crane your neck just a bit, you give yourself an angle, you go in, and then you bite and suck. And I think that's gross. A mild suck. Oh, it's gross, yeah, yeah. Oh, how dare you, objectively gross.

He's always like, you got to suck it. Objectively correct, though. I mean, it's how you get the burrito to stay solid and to not just fall apart in your hands. I would rather you just took some of the foil off, so you got just enough left. And then before you've even bitten, you just stick a straw through it, and then you suck it that way.

Suck the liquid all over. What I often do is I'll get a burrito, and I'll loosen out the sides of the tortilla. And then I've got like a pretty big vape sort of device, and I undo the cartridge. I pour burrito, just the contents of the burrito. And there'll be a slice of tortilla on the top, slice on the bottom, I'll crane it back in,

and I just vape that burrito. And there's no must, no fuss. And it's good for you. Anything you vape is inherently healthy. Yeah, it's good for the lungs. So it's no calories, and you're full, and it's just like it's as good as eating. So would you like the vape burrito for...

No, I want a real burrito. I want a burrito from a place called Gordo's Taqueria in San Francisco, which is a controversial choice as San Francisco burritos go. But it is, I think, the greatest burrito in the Bay Area, which is the greatest burrito in the world. And what they do, their specialty is that they put two slices of cheese on the tortilla,

then they put the whole tortilla into the tortilla steamer, and they steam, steam, steam, steam. When they bring it out, you have just a sheet of melted, perfectly melted cheese. Then they've got the greatest hot sauce, the green hot sauce. Usually, I'm a Rojo Boy, you guys know that about me. Yeah, that's why we invite you.

Yeah, I know, I know. So they want me, and they go, they heard you're a Rojo Boy. But this green salsa, for some reason, this verde, it is very, very good. And then I want bean cheese, rice, beans, and guacamole, and extra hot sauce. Roll it up, give it to me. I don't need meat, I'm good.

No meat. Bean and cheese burrito, Gordo's greatest thing I've ever had. There's one good bean and cheese burrito. Oh, but he puts rice in it. I don't like that. I agree with you. I mean, we've not come to the judging portion. It's a binding agent.

I think it ruins the whole taste. And he's really into carbs with his carbs. Like, he'll like potatoes and rice together. I think that's a little, with bread. I've not even heard your main course yet. You are in for a good shot here. Wait a second, hold on. First of all, the burrito is the greatest food of all time.

Second of all, rice is inherently a burrito food. I mean, that's what I'm saying. I don't like burrito. I don't like burrito. Yeah, of course you don't. You've never had one. I have, look, the whole notion of putting all the stuff in there and then wrapping it all up, it's like you've got a baby's nappy

and you've got to fold it all up and then dispose of it. I hate the feeling of it. That's the best part. The idea that you've conflated it to a baby's nappy, it's not inherent. It feels right, though, with those beans. I mean, when you said it, it did make me laugh in a way that felt familiar.

So I didn't like that. It was instinctive. A lot of the rice in there. It's part of it. A lot of the rice in there. What about some chopped potatoes? He put that in there too. No, I wouldn't have that.

I'll do a chopped potato and a breakfast burrito. There's a burrito called a California burrito, which is actually weirdly much more of a Southern California burrito. It's rice, cheese, sour cream, carne asada, and french fries and beans. You would probably do that. I wouldn't eat it, but it sounds delicious. I would do it.

We had sandwiches of french fries in them last night. It was too much for me. I had to take the french fries. I had picked them out like an absolute wimp. Yeah, that does sound wimpy. It's slightly pigged. I was crying. Oh, no wonder you reference the baby's nappy.

You're a bit of a baby yourself. Oh, yeah. Natasha, your main course. I'm going to have from Pacific Dining Car, which is... Tell them about what that is. That's this restaurant downtown LA, and it's like an old boxcar kind of. It's a 24-hour gourmet steakhouse.

Oh, white tablecloths only. The way we describe it is it's a wonderful place to see a Los Angeles City Council member cheating on his wife. It's like old school. It's always great people watching, but then they have amazing food, and it's pretty expensive, but they have this salmon with... Is it just hollandaise?

No, it's a maple ginger glaze salmon, and it is one of their best salmon dishes. It better be. Shit is like $59. It's real. The salmon. Well, you pay... You have to pay because there are white cloth restaurant

open all night long. You're paying for the 24 hours in this of it. If it weren't for these prices, they would have closed down long ago, and it's a very unique one-of-a-kind place, where at 4 in the morning, you can get a white tablecloth. Pacific dining car. It's like 10 minutes from Silver Lake.

It's just right downtown, but not deep downtown. You don't have to take the freeways to get there. What is your perfect time to eat the salmon within a 24-hour period of time? Definitely after most restaurants close, because then you kind of feel it. You're like, I can get this meal at 12.30 in the morning. That might be a good time to eat.

After you've been celebrating something, and then they have a great wine list. Last time we were there, we went on Valentine's Day. We had a show, I think, and then we went to Pacific Dining Car after Valentine's Day. And there was a couple there, and it was these two guys, and they were both with the date...

No, no, no. It was a guy... People take people they're trying to impress. Yeah, and his unbelievably hot girlfriend, or I would assume lover, and then his funky best friend. On Valentine's Day. And he ignored her the whole time,

and he just kept talking about Drake. She was on her phone the whole time. She was on her phone because they weren't talking to her, and he kept talking about Drake in a way that was like... It was like clearly what he was trying to give across to his best friend, his girlfriend, and any of the patrons within 10 Tables Earshot, he knew Drake.

Right, yeah, he was like, oh, Drake? You been to Drake House? Yes. The whole time. It was so hilarious. Like, he just kept saying Drake in this overly from... You just don't say Drake in such a familiar way without being like... It's quite a hard thing to do.

It's like most celebs, if you want to show off that you know them, you just go in first name terms. Yeah. Drake, Drake. Yeah, that's all right. Man, everyone calls him Drake. Aubrey.

Aubrey. I'm sorry, you might know him as Drake. Yeah, yeah. Oh, also, I want to say that Pacific Dining Car has the most amazing breakfast also. They do have a lot of breakfast. So, like, when I had my baby, Mosha went and got it because it was across the street.

And it was like banana pancakes and like, like a million different kinds of eggs, like very, like, old fashioned egg dishes. It is a classic. And Natasha likes it. Old school, 100-year-old restaurant. And when we had the kid, I would run across the street and grab,

yeah, this like, bruleed banana pancakes to bring to her. Then you'd have to get back to change the burrito. I love the different ways that you refer to your child as well. When I had my baby, when we had the kid. I don't think of her as my baby. Absolutely. She's an independent woman. The kid.

She can do what she wants. Yeah, yeah, yeah. The only person that I consider as close to me as the kid, one person. Yeah. Drake is Drake. Drake, close as Drake. So, you having the salmon?

Yeah, I'll have the salmon just because then it's, I can also have wine. I don't really want to have wine at breakfast. But the way they make it is they crust the salmon. I don't know why I'm helping you here, but they crust the salmon, it's seared on top. So, it's crispy. And it's fully soft and perfect in the middle.

And then it's a sweet, like almost asian-y, kind of like maple syrup, ginger glaze. It's delicious. It's a sweet salmon. And we always share it. Yeah, we'd get one. The custard top is really... Yeah, I mean, I don't need to...

Right. Do you want a wet napkin filled with baby shit? A perfectly cooked piece of salmon. So, I'm guessing you're guessing the tashes went in though. Yeah, the salmon's went in that one. So, the side dish. Okay, what was your side dish? Well, mine is the cream spinach that you order

at Pacific Dining Car that goes with... Staying in the same place. Staying there. We're not moving. You don't want to leave. Yeah. It's really cool. You've not left California so far for your menu.

And with most of us, we've been to San Francisco and Israel. And Israel. Yeah. Okay, okay. I love California. I had, I had... I was unable to decide... This is cheating now that it's a competition.

If this was just more of a laid back, what do I do here? Well, I'll tell you what... Okay, I know what I'll do. I'll tell you what I couldn't decide between and then I'm going to order the second thing. Okay. Deal? Okay, yeah, yeah, yeah.

I just thought it'd be cool because it's like, we're talking memory and stuff. Jews have the worst food of any ethnic group, probably in the world. I mean, Eastern European Jews. Hummus. Hummus. That's how bad Jewish food is,

that we had to literally colonize a region and go, our national dish. We invented it and it's like, no, I'm pretty sure it's not from there. But it's got like, hummus is like an Arab food that Israelis are just like, no, we made it. But the one good food that Eastern European Jews make,

it's mostly just like bad standard Eastern European, and I'm sure like sausage, well, not sausage, but meats and boiled chickens and sliced potatoes. But there's a dish called chullant, which is a rare dish. This is one of your favorite foods? It's one of the best things ever. The face that Natasha made.

You have to describe it. It's delicious. Tell them what's in it. Okay, it's a stew basically, but it's made with mixed beans, like 16 hour boiled beef. So it's like just falling apart, kind of the tenderest beef you've ever had in your life.

Little barley and like sauce kind of situation. And then in the, in, I'm not ordering this, in the middle, there's something called kishka, which is a kind of like wheat and beef fat, paste, pasty, sausagey thing. It's like a starchy- That's not sausage, right? Because that wouldn't be kosher.

It's beef fat, but it's made of like starch and, okay, so what I will have to- Does that sound good to you guys? Let's take on the challenge for a minute. I just wanted to- I've never had someone- I want to take a swing for my ethnicity, but as I was doing it, I gave up.

I've never had someone describe something, so specifically in so much detail, and yet I still have no visual of what it would be and what that looks like. I have no, but what is that? A solid, isn't it? It's a pot, right? It's between, you make it in a slow cooker,

and it's between a stew and a chili and a soup and a- Do you eat it with a spoon? You eat it, yeah, you would eat it definitely with a spoon. Beautiful name. You suck in it? You suck in it? No, you could suck it though.

You blow it though, because it's a soup. There's air one way or the other, anything I eat. It feels like it should be served in like a tin bowl. You mean in like a trench? Yeah, yeah, yeah. In 1917. By the quarter master. Like some whiskey, top it off with some whiskey.

It's the kind of thing when your foot is falling off due to trench rot. It's the perfect meal. And then everyone sits around and imagines it's something else. I'm imagining this is my mom's roast dinner. Yeah, this is like now we're in like a gulag somewhere. Remember real food? But what I will order.

Why can't you just describe that one? I'm going to lose. Okay, fine. Okay, okay, okay. You know what? No, no, no, no. I really want to hear what the other thing is though. Well, the greatest side dish ever

is from the San Gabriel Valley. It's dandan noodles. I order it with no pork. And the dandan noodles are a soft egg noodle in a sesame sauce and like a spice and probably a lot of MSG in this perfect concoction. And there's peanuts crumbled on top. And it's about the best thing in the world.

The Chinese, for some reason, the people that are most into the noodle, i.e. the Italians and the Chinese, have decided that noodles should be a side dish, which is very funny, right? Like the Italian meal is like you order pasta, but then we get to the main dish. So you're saying noodles are a side dish?

Yeah. Dandan feels like a main dish. No, no. I feel like it can't really compete with cream spinach. You're really pushing him towards the salt. Well, so far all you've said for cream spinach is cream spinach. Well, you know, it's like, it's all kind of the same. He said, cream spinach is from that place.

Cream spinach is delicious. No, listen, if you go to that restaurant, you'll get it. So let's take a quick pause and take a quick drive. But should I stick with challenge? Why not? Let's just stick with challenge and see what you guys pick. Fucking shitload of beans in your meal. That's true.

Is it a dream meal? So I don't have, there's no gas. There's no gas, okay. That's fine. Yeah, you don't have to have any gas, just full of beans. The beautiful food of most of the world wars. Do you want me to explain my spinach more? Yes, please.

Okay. It's not too watery. It's got a good flavor. It's hot. It's got salt and pepper. Bit of spinach, bit of cream. Yeah. Bit of spinach, bit of cream.

Probably some like special ingredient that I don't know. Wow. You're going to win this one. Can I, can I suggest maybe a grating of nutmeg in there? That maybe is what it is. That might be it. No, you cannot. I don't know what it is, it's Christmas.

All right, beef paste. It's beef and starch. Okay. Don't forget the barley. You're making it sound not appealing. It's beef with starch. You said it was pasty, pasty beef. It's a beef starch paste.

And that's in the middle. That's like the surprise in the middle here. Barley floating around. As soon as I eat through this barley, I'm sure there'll be a nice trick from me in the middle here. Oh, it's pasty beef. Oh, well, I think Charlotte wins. It sounds like the guy's like,

I had some lovely cream spinach. We had some good cream spinach in New York, in Lil' Frankie. Yes, we did. I had some cheese grilled on the top as well. That sounds good. Does that happen at the... No, I think theirs is very simple.

But heated like in one of those ovens, where it's like very hot. And there's a little crust on top. Let me tell you about Lil' Frankie's. Yeah, I went to Lil' Frankie's once, and we ordered some pasta. You remember this? Oh yeah, and they wanted to put truffle.

They come by and they're like, and we have a special, we have a special right now, a little winter truffle. Would you like to try the winter truffle? And we're like, oh yeah. And they're just like. Seven?

What was it? $50. I'm so mad. I'm like, no, you don't do that. You see, if you'd like to try the winter truffle, it's $50. You don't shavey, shavey, shavey, shavey, shavey, and then bled out.

It was not enough, there was not enough shades for $50. It's just, it was unforgivable. It was unforgivable. Yeah, that's pretty, that's a not good move. It was so casual the way it came out. Hey, what's up guys? We just found this in the back.

It's just a special, you want some? Did you, you know what other pet peeve I have? Oh, I hate this. Waiters will come up to you, you order a lemonade or a Diet Coke or something, and they go, oh, did you want another Diet Coke? Oh yeah. I always want to say, yeah, for free?

Tell me, do you want to buy another Diet Coke? Yeah. Don't casual it so that I'm fooled. Whether that comes in as well. I was at Place Bucket England, Ping Pong, Chained in some place, and this guy came along and he was, our drinks were like pretty low.

He was like, hey guys, I don't like what I'm seeing here in these drinks. They're looking a little low to me. Someone on this table has got to be thirsty. Who's thirsty? You're thirsty, you're thirsty. I'm going to use some extra drinks. And it's that thing of like,

no, I know we don't really want ones that are, you've got to want some drinks, guys. Look at you, you're going to be too thirsty. It's got to be deliberate too, when they do that casual thing. It's got to be a thing where they, it's like the social embarrassment of saying, I would love one,

but I would not like to pay for another. Sure. You're so embarrassed, you just go, okay, and then they charge you. Oh, I truly hate that. Yeah. Yeah. Also, little Frankies would be the worst person to do that,

because when we were there, it was cash and no card. It was cash only. That's right, I think that's right. A lot of places in New York are like that. If they do that, they're like $50, and you've only bought enough out for a certain amount. That's a pretty big move.

Also, what I figured out in my head is that Truffle-based oral ordering practices is T-boop, which is a quite a satisfying thing to say. What is it? Oh, that's what I'm saying. Yeah. This person has been engaged in T-boop. Truffle-based oral ordering practices,

they're engaged in T-boop. That's a real thing. No, we just made it up. It just happened. T-boop. T-boop. T-boop. They're engaged in T-boop, Your Honor.

T-boop. I opened up the child's nappy, and look what I found. A spoon full of T-boop. Surrounded by a tasty beef. A tasty beefy. So I think the cream spinach is going to win if you were to go for the beef paste.

Listen, I'll back down. If you'd gone for the Dan Dan, it would have been this. I know. I opened up. The Dan Dan would have been a shoe-in. It felt like cheating. It did, because it is like a main dish. She's choosing a nice dish.

You know what? Cholent is delicious, and I challenged the two of you. Find a Jewish family back in London that will serve you Cholent. Take a bite and tell me what you think. How would you suggest I do that? Because it's quite tricky to go around London and say, are you Jewish?

Go to a Jewish neighborhood, scream, I want Cholent. Cut a little bit more on the sides of your haircut. I'm making it a little bit more stark of a kind of undercut haircut. Comb it down, starched, khaki, head to toe, boots. You walk in and you say, I want Cholent. Who is Jewish? And they will welcome you into that community with open arms like you have never experienced before.

Yeah. Also, I guess make sure you say, I want Cholent. Who is Jewish? Not, who is Jewish? I want Cholent, because I guess who is Jewish? Just like straight out the gate. Stop listening. People want to hear what it is that you want,

not just straight in with who is Jewish. Actually, I'll just say drop the Cholent and just say who is Jewish. Really? That's a plan. That seems a bit risky to me. They'll come with me. Yeah, they'll just come out.

Yeah, come with me. Who's Jewish? Come with me. They'll come out with a bowl of Cholent. That's just like a code thing. Yeah. OK, I'll trust you. I guarantee it.

Also, I guess if there's any listeners who live in London, who are Jewish, who make Cholent, then let us know. Yeah. Cholent's good. I think we're saying the great beneath around and you can give him some, and you can bring it to us. Do you like beef stew? Yeah.

Do you like beans? Yeah. I actually don't really like beans. OK, you're out. You're in. Yeah, I'm still in. OK, you like beef stew. You like beans.

Yeah. Honey, you already lost. Favorite drink? As my child says, mommy needs wine. What? Literally true. She'll say that sometimes. How's this kid?

Two. She's two. Natasha went to the other room the other day and our kid goes, mommy's getting wine. And I was like, no, she's not. It was kind of a sad moment. But you don't drink that much wine. No, but I mean, I would have wine with my dinner for sure.

Yeah. Yes. So loud? Always. What we talking? I would have whatever people say, like something, I mean, I like so many different kinds, like something that would go,

probably a white wine with the salmon. What's your go to? Like a Sauvignon Blanc. From where? Oh, don't you, you like specific ones? No, I would, I would want just something not sweet. No, but somebody recently told you not to get wines from, from where?

That there was some, it was it from California? I mean, I'd always rather it be French. That something was wrong with the California wines? I don't know if that's true. I feel like I'm watching, do you, have you got the board game articulate here? I feel like I'm watching a couple playing that. Someone told you you didn't want a wine from where?

Where was it? It was, uh, this area. I told you I'm not like, like I'm not going to be able to describe everything in great detail. But for a minute there, which I really enjoyed, you said, I want wine. And I said, what type of wine?

And you're on the verge of just go, any, any wine. I would have like, if something goes with something, you know, I like to educate myself all the time. So I'm very open to new culinary pairings. So I would maybe want to be surprised. I've only recently come around to white wine at all as a concept, because I think I just had terrible white wine.

A bad white wine is, you can get away, it's so disgusting. Bad red, you can sort of get away with it, but bad white wine is. Sauvignon Blanc is always really nice and like crisp, but not too like sweet. Do they have synthetic wine in, uh, in England? Synthetic wine.

Or like, it's like not made from grapes. It's like we had a thing called Ripple, and a thing called Mad Dog, and a thing called Cisco, and a thing called Boone's Farm. Do you have any of those? No, none of those. They're low.

I saw like members of a gang. Well, if you're in a gang, you drink those things. Right, okay. And Cisco, they used to call Liquid Crack, and it was like, it was a carbonated synthetic wine, like almost like a soda. It was the lowest of the low.

But I wonder what the equivalent is. We have like really, I mean the sort of thing that you drink as a teenager. Yeah, it's very much that. Is this what the drink you're picking? No. We'd have like Cheap Cider, like you can buy like bottles of Cheap Cider,

like a little white lightning and white thunder. Yeah. It's always- Thunderbird was one of the ones- Oh, there you go. So it must be sort of similar. Sort of similar zone. But you could get like for like two pounds,

you could get two liters or something. Really bad stuff. Bad, bad stuff. I like when restaurants have someone who comes to your table, and they'll explain to you like their favorite wines, and what would go with every, what are they called?

Somalia. Somalia, yes. And I like when they, yeah, they like suggest things that you would have never known and- I also like that, but I find myself, while they're describing things,

that I'm nodding like I'm taking it all in, and I know I'm not going to remember any of that by the end of the meal. Well, you know they did a control test on Somalias, where they like give them a blind taste test of like the fine wine that they recommend, and then an equivalent very cheap version, and they all failed.

Really? Who knows? Who knows? Who knows what's really going on out there? Have you seen that documentary, Tom? No. Oh, it's brilliant. So they have to go,

they do this like this exam to become a proper Somalia, and they're so stressed about it, and they just, they have to learn it with flashcards and- And that's for wine, but there's also like tea Somalias too. I've met one of those. I did a water Somalia once here in LA. Just in case you thought LA doesn't delve

into its own stereotype enough, there's a restaurant at the LA Museum of Modern Art, and they have a water tasting flight, and they have a water Somalia, and he comes through with like 16 different kinds of water, and you taste them all, and I will say to their credit, most of it is Huey, but there are a couple of the waters

with a high mineral content where you're like, this is unique, and it doesn't taste like anything I've ever had before. Okay. It had like, it's all the ones with the most, it's like Swiss, minerally, it definitely had a flavor. My tea Somalia in Uruguay told me

that Darjeeling is the champagne of teas. No sense. Ever started with my tea Somalia in Uruguay. Tea Somalia in Uruguay. I'm just saying he clearly was, he had gone to school. He was like very into, I mean, I obviously didn't care. The Sauvignon Blanc, from France. Yeah, let's say that.

French Sauvignon Blanc. Very cold. Yes. I am not a drinker, and so my challenge at fancy restaurants is often, do you have something interesting enough for me? I get a little bummed when it's like, everybody has a fancy cocktail,

and then I get like a diet coke. People can make so much money off of that. I don't know why every restaurant just doesn't have non-alcoholic $9 mocktails for people like motion. I've been to a lot of places like, tasting many places that will do a juice pairing, as well as a wine pairing. That does feel like, it feels like bullshit.

You want like sparkling water with it. You don't want like heavy juice. But what I have had a pairing of is coffee, and because I'm not a drinker, I'm a big coffee person, so I'm going to make my order officially. It's actually what I'm drinking right at this very moment. Wow. It's a, I will have mine, a cup of fills.

It's a San Francisco based coffee chain, where they make every cup by hand, but it's pour over, and I'll do it fills way. I'm actually not drinking mine fills way, but fills way is heavy cream, brown sugar. They pour, they do a pour over, and then they pour it back and forth, back and forth. It's a dark roast blend,

the Turkish blend with a pinch of cardamom in it, and a sprig of mint leaf on top. Fills is, so, this is my best story about fills. My brother went in to order a cup, and he ordered a cup of coffee, and they're like, okay, that'll be $7, and he's like $7, and the guy, it happened to be Phil. Phil himself, and Phil goes,

oh, you don't think it's worth it? Taste the coffee. If it's not worth $7, you don't pay. And my brother's like, oh no, I'm sorry, no, it's all good, of course I'll pay. He goes, no, taste it. You tell me if it's worth $7, if you don't think it's worth $7, you don't pay.

And my brother took a sip, and he gave him the fact that it's $7, because it's the craziest cup of coffee you'll ever have in your life. That does sound great, a mint leaf in it. A mint leaf, cardamom, brown sugar, yum. One other tidbit about the Turkish blend is that in Glendale, California,

which is the highest concentration of Armenian-Americans in, I think, America, I went in and I said, can I get the Turkish please? And they said, oh, we don't have the Turkish please. We don't have the Turkish. We have, it's called the delightful blend. One store has changed the name of Turkish because of the Armenian genocide.

Just that, which I thought was so interesting. It's like, you can still get a German chocolate cake in the streets of Israel, but you cannot get a cup of Turkish. I feel like they missed the trick by calling it the delightful. They could have called it the enemy blend or something. Yeah, true, but then nobody would buy it at all, right? That's my order.

And a nice part of steaming hot coffee and steaming hot bowl of tulips. What a night. Yeah, you've got to go home with them at the end of this night. I don't know if this is cheating, but I actually have some of it right here. You guys can taste it. Well, no, no, no, I'm just...

Ed, you should taste it. I don't drink coffee, but Ed... You literally could if you wanted to. Ed, you should drink the coffee. I could even open it up a bit so you don't have to get my lid. Ed, you tell me this isn't worth $7. Has this ever happened before?

No, not really, no. Has this got everything you made? This doesn't have the cream. This doesn't have the cream doesn't have the mint. I prefer... I actually prefer coffee. And it's hot. Tell me what you think.

I had an iced one earlier. Did it have the mint in it? It's got... Yes, it does. Okay. Take a sip. Tell us what you think. Oh, the firmus.

Very sweet. It's pretty sweet. It's very sweet, but the mint really is really doing a lot there. Yeah. Oh, yeah? That's pretty delicious. You see, so it's going in my back nose.

Kind of want to taste it. Oh, I haven't had coffee in like a long time. You would fucking love this. Would I? You are going to lose your mind, mate. I'm going to have a sip of it. Let's have a sip. He hasn't had coffee in years.

It's going to be funny when you can't sip. Well, I'll kind of have every now and again. He's going to hit the roof. You get the mint when you're about to take the first sip. Okay. It's a chain, Phil's. It's from San Francisco, right? Yeah, that's delicious.

That's very nice. Get you back on the stuff. I'll bring you back. Thank you. I'll bring you back to coffee. Do you know what's craziest about this? Do you know what that mint leaf is made of? Beef paste.

Delicious. No, but the cream foam top really does put it over the... It does send it into an area of decadence where it's almost a dessert, right? I can imagine it. And that's what I want. All my drinks have to be desserts. Now, I love booze.

I love drinking, but I think it might have to be the coffee for me. I hear you. Oh, yeah. It's good. It's a red wine guy. I'm a red wine guy more than anything. Yeah, yeah.

So you're neck and neck now, again? Well, what's your... I'll go for the coffee as well. But I just had it. Wait, no. I think I'm in front. You thought you were on the side dish? Yeah.

I'm sorry. Back away. Back away, Moshe. I'm sorry. It's like someone just walked out of a car crash, holding the steering wheel. I think I won. I won, right?

So, it's neck and neck going into the desserts. I'm very excited. We haven't planned it like that. That's genuinely just... Yeah, that's genuinely how we're feeling. So the dessert is everything. This is the decider. Now I've got a real dilemma,

because I know what her dessert is. It will lose. Except if I do what I was going to go in here with, because I was just going to be cheeky. You don't know what these guys like, though. But you know what? It'll even the playing field. I'm going to stick with my original choice,

and I'll probably lose, only because of the choice that I've made. Cup of beans. Yeah, here you go. With some barley. No, that's disgusting. It's pure unrefined baby shit. Just a spoonful of baby shit.

Yeah. Okay, mine is also in California, Los Angeles. It is? Yeah, and it is a Spamoni ice cream. That's not just a California thing. No, but the one that I like is at Dentana's. Oh, okay, sure. Dentana's.

Spine Dentana's. So Dentana's like an old school Italian restaurant, and it's very hard to find... Do you guys know what Spamoni ice cream is? No, I'm looking forward to finding out about it. I know what ice cream is, and I love it. So I don't really... Ice cream's always my favorite dessert.

He always wants to get the panna cotta and all that heavy... I'm not that into it. It never seems good to me. It's always too sweet. Anyway, so ice cream is what I like for dessert. So this is chocolate, cherry, and pistachio ice cream. So here's an interesting...

Not strawberry, not vanilla. It's like a real Italian-American Neapolitan ice cream. But Neapolitan is chocolate, vanilla, and strawberry. Yeah, and it's... Pistachio, cherry, chocolate is like a perfect combination. When I was living in Italy for a little while, and I was working on a film there, and she was telling me about Spamoni,

and I went to all the Italian people on the crew, and I was like, have you ever heard of Spamoni ice cream? And they were like, Spamoni? It's like an American Italian... Italian-American ice cream forever. Yeah. And it's slices of chocolate.

It's very like 1950s. Yeah, true like... It'd be worse if you found out it meant sperm in Italian or something. Yeah. Spamoni means, fuck you, America. Dentonnes is a very cool place, because it's like everybody's in tuxes, and they're all like charm...

Like all the waiters are super charming, and they like... You know, you feel like they love you, and they'll be like Warren Beatty there. And they'll come make a Caesar salad at your table. It's a really classy, awesome joint. Spamoni sounds good. Like we're both ice cream boys.

Damn it. Yeah. You more than me. I love ice cream more than anything else. What's your favorite flavor? Well, you've opened up a can of worms there. That's what the flavor of Spamoni is. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Moshe likes like jam-based, like fruity... Ice creams. Yeah, and I always go for the chocolate. I would go lean more in the chocolate kind of direction. Fruity ice creams, they have to be... I'd probably rather have a sorbet if I'm gonna have a fruit... A fruity one.

Grapefruit sorbet, that's nice. Yeah, like, yeah, those kind of citrusy sorbets are delicious. I think ice creams are like more chocolatey or toffee. I like salty ice creams as well with the salted caramel or something like that. Some like salted biscuits in there or like... We went to Ample Hills Creamery in New York, which is basically they just empty whole bags of candy

into the ice cream. There's some ice cream in there, but it's mainly just the in bits. Did you love it? Yeah, Ample Hills so much. I mean, Creamery, yeah, it is creamy as hell. It's the creamiest ice cream I've ever had, and there's like potato chips in there

and like the salted caramel, graham crackers, as you call them here. What do you call them? I call, oh well, I guess that's what we call them. Do you even have graham crackers? No, we don't really, but we would read it as graham crackers. Yeah, we'd call them graham crackers. But you'd call them graham biscuits.

Graham biscuits. Graham biscuits, yes. We'd have graham, which is probably why it hasn't taken off in the UK. Wait, what do people eat when they go camping? What is the camping snack from a campfire? Yeah, which catch a rabbit. Right, okay. I mean, find your horse or you'd go on a horse.

And you'd love this. Tin of beans. Tin of beans. But there isn't like a campfire. There's not a proper thing. I was in the Boy Scouts, won't surprise anyone in this room. But like when we went camping,

we would put, so what my favourite thing to do is get tin foil and you cut up a banana in half and then put a Mars bar in the middle of it and then just wrap that up and put it in the campfire and then leave it there for a bit, get it out and then just eat all the melted Mars bar with the banana. Can't say that sounds bad. But you've got to peel the foil off

and then you've got to suck them by the way. Yeah, sure, sure, sure. Suck a banana. We don't even cook the banana before we suck it. In the States, every young man learns to just suck a banana down to the hill. Just as a rite of passage. Yeah, that's fair enough.

Ascension into manhood. You guys do know that I'm referring to the classic S'more. Yes, S'more. S'more's are great. We are the first hotel that we stayed at in New York on this trip. They gave us, there was free, a bank of s'mores in the hotel room

and I was delighted. There was a fire. No, no, there was just a bag of pre-made s'mores. Oh, that's cute. From a local store. They were so delicious. Benito didn't want his, so he gave me his ones. Marshmallow, grey ham biscuits.

Yes, really. Now I'm going to lose. Now, see, I didn't expect you would respond. If you knew what Spamoni was, you would probably be rolling your eyes, but because it sounds exotic to you. Sure. You think it's cool.

Now I'm tempted to cheat and do a really. No, just do your thing. I like chocolate, cherry, and pistachio flavors. My ultimate dessert. My ultimate fancy dessert is a whole other story, but my ultimate dessert in life is, I'm a freak when it comes to gummy candies. I mean, I can't get enough.

The more disgusting, the better. I'll eat a pound at a time. Okay. He likes the kind that are like sour. Whatever amount I get. But radioactive, looking like fluorescence. I don't like the face you're making at all. I feel like I'm going to lose,

but I will, any amount I buy, I will eat them all piece by piece until I am done, no matter what the comfort. Like I often have to hide them for him. I'll put them in the oven, and then I remember when I first met him, he had a baggie in his hot car of melted, all his melted gummies,

which also had chocolate covered gummy bears mixed in. So it was like chocolate and gummy, and he poked a hole in the bottom of the bag and just sucked. Sucked again. I'm a suck-based eater. Sucked the liquid formation of the gummy that. And that was when you first met him. Yeah.

I was actually, I was a big boy. That's a big move. I was impressed. How did you get me to think that was impressive? It must have been a gag. There's no way I wasn't doing it as a like. Take a seat. I'll do this gross thing.

I'd like to meet up again. Hold on a second. It's like I've got Mars bars in banana. It's like I'm breastfeeding. I should have cheated. I should have cheated, but it would have made the podcast less fun. Sure.

But that's your, I mean, is your genuine answer those gummies from the bag? To his credit, he was making a joke, but you did do it. Yeah. There was a lot of follow through on the joke. Listen, let me just. I want to do that joke on like an early date with someone that I like. Well, let me just tell you, like.

Maybe he didn't like me that much. The memory. No, that was a test. If you had left there, I'd have been like, she really wasn't the one. But the fact that you stuck through that, even if that, then I knew that you would ride with me if I took human life, which I have,

and I'm going to reveal to you now. Yeah. Well, it's fair enough to reveal that on this pod. I say, I mean, it's got to be the ice cream. I'll be a sore, but I could have. I won. You won. You won.

You won. Absolutely. You won. You guys are going to have a great time at this restaurant. Yeah. And now, I mean, obviously that means that you are now, most because you lost, you're now also a genie. Oh, amazing.

And you're, you're, you're, you're, the shackles are appearing on your wrist. Oh, no. Yeah. You're going into the lamp and you're going to be working at the restaurant forever. Can I ask my wife one question as the genie? I am the genie. I will grant you one wish.

What is it? That's what you're asking me right now. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I think you guys kind of know what. Yeah, what it should be. Yep. That we're not divorced. That I had met you.

Free me, motherfucker. Free me. I want to come back and hang out. We have a child together. Please. Okay, okay. I'll free you. I'll free you.

She waited. I'm sorry. I, we're, we're not divorced, but I'm getting sucked into this lamp. I'm gone. It's not a rump. It's a big bag of melted gum and chandeliers. Yeah, that happens.

You didn't happen, actually. Congratulations. Suck away. I appreciate the divorce. What's that in the corner of the level? Beef paste. Okay. I know we need your orders back to you now.

Me and Ed have decided our favorite meal, obviously, but we'll see if you agree with this. So, Natasha, I'll do yours first. Sparkling water with limes. You would like, oh, you skipped the bread? Yeah. Yeah, we decided to skip the bread. You skipped the bread.

I had a baguette. I had a crust baguette. Yeah. Yeah. So Natasha skipped the bread. You would want a wedge salad with blue cheese and bacon. You would like the salmon with maple and ginger glaze. You want the cream spinach from Pacific Dining Car,

which is the salmon's also from there. The drink, you want a French sauv blanc. And the dessert, you want sphermone ice cream, chocolate chirri pstacheo from Dantanas. Dantanas. Mosher, you want. Oh, you're sharing the sparkling water with the limes. You want warm French bread, just crust.

Nothing else. Hummus with sliced egg, hot sauce, and pickles on it. Burrito from Gordo's. Her charlotte. Phil's coffee, dark roast blend, heavy cream, brown sugar, pinch of cardamom, mint leaf, and gummy candy sucked from a baguette. I just want to point out that at the beginning of this podcast,

Natasha was like, well, Mosher is really the foodie in this. Hearing it read back, I'll take the L. It sounds pretty fucking disgusting. Yeah, I mean, I don't know. I was like, you're foraging for all that, and you're like, I'm not a man of people's bins. I'll just take a hot bag of garbage. Well, there we have it.

What a wonderful menu for a Mosher and Natasha there, James. Delicious. Two meals of deliciousness. One more delicious than the other, just slightly. The beef paste really didn't sell that menu to me. You know what? I imagine those dishes do taste nice, but he's got to work on his describing words.

Yeah, he really does. He picked all the wrong things to describe, the beef paste. Yeah, don't say beef paste. Thank you very much for coming in, Mosher and Natasha. Mosher Cash has released a crowd work only album called Serfing, baby. It's called Crowd Serfing Volume One, is what it's called, and maybe the subtitle of it is Serfing Baby. Yeah, maybe, yeah.

No, who's to say it's not? And they didn't say tapioca pearls. They didn't say tapioca pearls. That's the only reason we're plugging anything. Yeah. Otherwise, that'd be it. That should also be part of it. If they say the secret ingredient, they're out the dream restaurant

and we don't do anything to plug their work. Oh, that'd be so great. That'd be pretty sweet. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, hey, let's plug our own stuff off menu official on Twitter and Instagram. Also, offmenupodcast.co.uk for all your off menu needs, including all the restaurants that are mentioned in the podcast,

are listed by the Great Benito on a page called Restaurant. And also, go on to Amazon Prime and check out my special blood sugar. Woohoo, it is funny. Thank you very much for listening. Goodbye. Goodbye. Hello, my name's Rob Orton, and I do the Rob Orton Daily Podcast.

The Rob Orton Daily Podcast is a daily podcast that is quite short, some are two minutes long, some are 10 minutes long, and they are stories and poems. And basically, all the thoughts I've ever had that I like enough to want to share with people. And the Rob Orton Podcast is available on Apple, Acast, Spotify, all the other places where you normally get your podcasts. And on social media, it is at Rob Orton Podcast.

Thank you. Hello, it's me, Amy Gledhill. You might remember me from the best ever episode of Off Menu, where I spoke to my mum and asked her about seaweed on mashed potato, and our relationship's never been the same since. And I am joined by... Me, Ian Smith. I would probably go bread.

I'm not going to spoil it in case. Get him on, James and Ed. But we're here sneaking in to your podcast experience to tell you about a new podcast that we're doing. It's called Northern News. It's about all the news stories that we've missed out from the North because, look, we're two Northerners. Sure, but we've been living in London for a long time.

The new stories are funny. Quite a lot of them crimes. It's all kicking off. And that's a new podcast called Northern News. We'd love you to listen to. Maybe we'll get my mum on. Get Gledhill's mum on every episode. That's Northern News.

When's it out, Ian? It's already out now, Amy! Is it? Yeah, get listening. There's probably a backlog. You've left it so late.